UANI Renews Call for
Manhattan Hotels to
Refuse to Host Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad During the 2011 UN
General
Assembly

New
York, NY -
On Tuesday, United
Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) renewed
its call on New York City hotels to refuse to host Iranian President
Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad during this year's United Nations General Assembly (UNGA)
next
month.

On August
16, The Daily Beast published an Op-Ed by UANI
President, Ambassador
Mark D. Wallace, entitled "Hotels
Should Ban Ahmadinejad." Given
Ahmadinejad's statements denying 9/11 and the Iranian regime's covert alliance with Al
Qaeda, Ambassador
Wallace asked whether any Manhattan hotels could "honestly think it
appropriate to provide accommodations to the leader of such a
detestable
government, specifically in the very city where the worst of 9/11
occurred?"

On July 21, UANI first called on New York City's hotels to deny
accommodation
to Ahmadinejad. Now, with the UNGA closely approaching, UANI is
renewing its
call.

In separate letters to a number of New York hotels, including the
Hilton
Manhattan East, Grand Hyatt New York, InterContinental The Barclay,
Millennium
UN Plaza and Warwick New York, Ambassador Wallace
wrote:

It is worth recalling that
speaking before the General Assembly last year, Ahmadinejad despicably
claimed
that the U.S. orchestrated the September 11 terrorist attacks against
its own
citizens. As President Obama remarked at the time, those
comments were
"offensive," "hateful" and "inexcusable."
With the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaching this September, and in
light of
previously undisclosed information regarding the Iranian regime's
alleged
complicity in the 9/11 attacks, its links to Al-Qaeda and its role in
killing
American soldiers (The New York Times. "Court
Filings Assert Iran Had Link to 9/11 Attacks" and The New York Times.
"In
Shadow of Death, Iraq and U.S. Tiptoe Around a Deadline"), New Yorkers, and by extension all
Americans, will
not look kindly on any venues that accommodate Ahmadinejad during his
stay here
in New York City.

***

UANI will publicly highlight
and applaud those hotels that make the proper moral decision to not
host
Ahmadinejad and his delegation. ... We appreciate your cooperation in
this
matter. Given the urgent nature of this issue please let us
hear from you
by August 30, 2011.

This is
the third consecutive year that UANI is leading its Hotels
Campaign. In previous years, UANI
and its supporters have pressured multiple hotels to deny
accommodations to
Ahmadinejad and his delegation.

In 2009,
UANI and its supporters successfully urged The New York Helmsley Hotel,
Gotham
Hall and the Essex House to refuse to host Ahmadinejad. As a result,
Ahmadinejad was effectively quarantined to the InterContinental New
York
Barclay, the one hotel in New York that agreed to accommodate the
Iranian
delegation.

In 2010,
InterContinental made the ethical decision to not host Ahmadinejad,
isolating
him to the only hotel that would accept him, the Hilton Manhattan East.
For its
irresponsible decision, Hilton received a great
deal of negative publicity in the media, and its guests were significantly
inconvenienced.

Click here to learn
more about UANI's Hotels Campaign.
Click here to read
the UANI Hotels Op-Ed on The
Daily Beast website.